Why ‘Yo’ Is Not a Complete Joke

When news broke this week of a $1 million investment in Yo — an app that simply lets people send “yo” to friends” – it appeared to be a bad joke.

To some, the tech scene has come to resemble a parody of itself, one even stranger than the parodies it has spawned in television. Not even Pied Piper, the fictional startup on the HBO show “Silicon Valley” was able to raise $1 million—instead, settling for $200,000 despite its apparently sophisticated software. Yo, meanwhile, was created in eight hours by an entrepreneur who wanted to create a basic notification service for his friend.

But “Yo” is more than simply a Stephen Colbert punchline. The app highlights a specific phenomenon happening in Silicon Valley and beyond: Entrepreneurs and investors are clamoring to find the next mode of communication on mobile phones. And no one is quite sure of the answer.